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29 Apr 2013

Gregory Haney

Photo by Craig Schwartz

The 2012-13 Broadway season has come to a close, and the 67th annual Tony Awards are on the horizon. Before Tony nominations are announced April 30, the staff at Playbill.com took a look back at the season and chose a handful of Broadway breakout performances. From Broadway newcomers to familiar faces in monumental moments, here are performers who stole the spotlight this season.

Gregory Haney pushed Broadway boundaries this season as the first transsexual high school character to take a Main Stem bow in the cheerleading musical Bring It On: The Musical. Book writer Jeff Whitty created the character of La Cienega, a member of an all-girl hip hop dance crew at Jackson High, who stomped onto the stage without apology and without an explanation. "There are big misperceptions about transgender people," Haney told Playbill. "I'm trying to really give it the respect that it deserves. It's a hard thing to get up every day and be true to yourself and then have backlash from people who don't want you to be who you are supposed to be." Read Playbill's feature on Haney, La Cienega and Bring It On.